Peterborough to Northampton

2nd September 2019

Although the Soke of Peterborough had historically managed a certain degree of independence from Northamptonshire, culminating in it gaining its own administrative county council in 1889, it has always been considered to be a part of the larger county. So when I crossed the River Welland in Stamford yesterday I entered not only the Soke, but also Northamptonshire

NORTHAMPTONSHIRE:   County Town - Northampton

Northamptonshire survived the 1974 reorganisation relatively unscathed. It had already lost the Soke of Peterborough, which was amalgamated with Huntingdonshire in 1965 to form the county of Peterborough and Huntingdon. When that county was abolished in 1974 Peterborough, rather than returning to its natural home county became part of Cambridgeshire instead! Otherwise, the county structure survived more or less intact with the county town, Northampton, being the largest and also occupying a central position in the county.

I had arrived in Peterborough on the train from Lancaster and had time to grab a sandwich for lunch to be taken on the first bus of the day - Stagecoach's X4. The X4 runs through to Northampton, being one of a number of long-distance routes that also link the city with Leicester, Cambridge and Great Yarmouth. But as that would mean arriving in Northampton by mid-afternoon I had decided to break my journey in either Oundle, Corby, Kettering or Wellingborough as the mood took me.

First bus of the day:  The X4

Stagecoach market the X4 as a "Gold" service supposedly of a higher quality than the rest of the network although other than a different livery and more comfortable seats there didn't seem much to set it apart from the rest of the network.

I'd decided to break my journey at Oundle. I'd found the small towns of Rutland to be somewhat dominated by private schools and Oakham was no different. In fact, with its stone buildings and sleepy atmosphere it would fit quite neatly into the smaller county.

Bus Stop A  in Oakham

Thirty minutes between buses was just long enough to have a walk around and get the feel of the place. Although it's a very pleasant town I must admit that to me the most interesting feature was the continued existence of a number of curious "bus stop" signs that incorporate the DfT standard bus from the 1970s on what appears to be a much earlier sign.

(Incidentally, this is "Bus Stop A" rather than " A bus stop".  Bus Stop B is round the corner!)

Then it was back onto the X4 for another fast run along main roads to the former steelmaking town of Corby.  I chose not to get off here as I'm not a fan of new towns, with their boring shopping-precinct centres. I did notice that Corby appears to have lost its bus station in favour of on-road stops and that was another factor in my decision to stay on board and continue to Kettering.

Kettering

What I took to be the bus station

First impressions of Kettering were, it has to be said, somewhat grim. This wasn't helped when I got off the bus in what I took to be the town's bus station:  a row of  bus shelters built in the 1950's and probably last maintained not many years later later.

Two men and a woman having a drunken slanging-match in the middle of the bus run-through area didn't contribute much to the mood either.

But the rest of the town - and apologies here to anyone who knows and loves it - didn't seem much better. The main features seemed to be empty shops, very few people around and litter-strewn streets.

But the town was saved, for me at least, when I stumbled upon the "Bus Interchange".

A new and, for the time being at least, well-looked after facility that, unusually, showed-off public transport in a very favourable light.  There was also plenty of information on buses from the town, which led to the discovery of an alternative means of continuing my journey south: service 47 to Wellingborough that had the advantage over the X4 of avoiding the main roads and following a more roundabout route via a number of villages.

The late-running X4 coming to the rescue

The disadvantage was that it arrived in Wellingborough two minutes after the scheduled departure of the X4 on to Northampton with the next one not due for another 45 minutes. By now it was late afternoon and, after Kettering, I had had enough sight-seeing. and just wanted to get to my destination. The existence of a number of passengers still waiting at the bus stop however alerted me to the fact that X4 might not have left yet and a quick check on Stagecoach's "app", which I have on my 'phone showed that this was in fact the case. Sure enough it arrived two minutes later and took me off to Northampton, being by far the busiest bus of the day due to carrying a load of college students from somewhere beyond Wellingborough, most of whom stayed on through to Northampton, where we arrived just after 17.00hrs.

Oakham to Peterborough

Northampton to Bedford